[CP 123 CD] Vittorio Gelmetti; Organum Quadruplum

Here’s a special one: the 1974 “Edizioni Musicali e Discografiche Pubbliart” - essentially, a private imprint - issue of Vittorio Gelmetti’s electronic music, including the extended 1969 piece “L'Opera Abbandonata,” composed at the Studio Eksperymentalne of the Polish radio in Krakow with Bohdan Mazurek - an incredible 23-minute collage of radio static & plundered audio material - plus the 1967 "Organum Quadruplum” - oddly, a “Live Recording” - chair-shuffles & stifled coughs dot the transcription of essentially the raw playback of the piece - with the short “Ipotesi A” - not electronic per se, but an interesting blend of Kagel-esque irreverence, composed in tribute to Messiaen. 

Gelmetti was one of Italy’s first electronic composers, working in the worlds of “Academic” music and film (he famously scored Antonioni’s first “color” film “Red Desert” along with Giovanni Fusco - in fact he was heavily active in Italian film & television from the mid-60s through the early 70s. The record being replicated here is flat-out one of rarest documents of Italian early electronic music - that is, until a small clutch of sealed originals were recently discovered, from which the audio here was painstakingly restored & remastered - a major issue from the P.C. C.P. stronghold.